Unless you’re lucky enough to live in some kind of country estate or a ranch with miles of land around, the chances are you have at least a few neighbors.

With luck on your side, these people can really brighten your life – with a friendly smile and someone to keep an eye on your property while you’re out of town, you can’t go wrong.

But when you draw the short straw when it comes to neighbors, your life is about to get a whole lot more challenging, as the couple in this story found out.

Read on to discover what happened to lead to them deciding to put a firm foot down.

WIBTA if I told my neighbor no?

My wife (30, female) and I (35, male) just moved to a new state two months ago, and got a duplex near the city center in a decent neighborhood.

We were excited to finally have a decent size backyard with room for our dog to run around, a fire pit, garden, and a chicken coop.

My wife and I consider ourselves to be very cordial and friendly neighbors, but we are not loud.

We never yell if we happen to have a disagreement, and we keep to ourselves.

Let’s see how they settled into their new neighborhood.

We quickly met our neighbors, who I’ll call Barry and Emma, a couple in their forties who have two young kids.

We’ve since had friendly chats over the backyard fence, mostly with Barry.

However, on a regular basis, both me and my wife have heard Emma yelling at both Barry and the kids.

We wouldn’t get involved because it’s not our business, but it’s uncomfortable and we feel for Barry and the kids.

And the kids. They are LOUD. The younger one screams as part of their regular vocabulary, and the older one teases her regularly, enabling the constant screaming.

They often play outdoors while me and/or my wife happen to be in our backyard, and it is grating whether we are working on something or trying to relax.

That being said, at the end of the day they are kids, and I’m not their parent.

But their courtesy doesn’t seem to go both ways.

Since putting our backyard together and nice weather has finally come around, me and my wife have made it a weekly ritual to hang out in the backyard, burn some wood in the fire pit, have a few beers and hang out, and maybe have some music going quietly.

We usually do this on a Friday or Saturday, and the latest we stay up is midnight.

So far, Barry has come out to ask if we turn off music because the kids are trying to sleep around 10pm.

I said fair enough, and turned off the music.

Another time, my wife was on our porch smoking a cigarette, and Emma came outside and asked her to put it out because the smoke was going into her kids room (the second floor window was left open).

My wife apologized, put it out and went inside.

Then, the situation continued to get worse.

This past Saturday, me, my wife and her friend were in our backyard, burning wood in the fire pit, and drinking beers.

By no means were we loud.

At 9:45pm, Emma came out and told us to put the fire out.

She claimed smoke was coming into the house, she couldn’t close the windows because it was “too hot” and the fire was too close (it was 20 feet away from any structure).

I said no worries, put it out, and our night ended.

Read on to find out how the couple have felt in the days since this most recent confrontation.

Since then, both me and my wife have been frustrated with the situation. We go out of our way to not be a disturbance just so we can enjoy spending time together, and we LOVE our backyard.

It feels like our backyard is held hostage, but we don’t want to rock the boat and make things weird.

I want to nip it in the bud while we’re relatively new neighbors.

Next time we have our backyard hangouts and are asked to stop, I’m planning to plainly say “No, sorry.”

AITA?

Sure it’s a little annoying if neighbors are in their yard with a fire when the kids are trying to sleep, but that’s what happens when you live nearby other people.

It’s clear that Emma’s yelling is more of an issue than the evenings this couple are spending in the yard, but this couple are good enough to leave the other family to their own business.

It’s a shame that doesn’t go both ways.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit thought to this.

This person pointed out that not only was Emma not being very neighborly, she was being a pretty bad mom too.

While others explained that as long as they were being considerate, they could have all the fire pits they wanted.

Meanwhile, this Redditor encouraged the couple to check their facts, then stand their ground.

Proximity to neighbors is a necessary evil when it comes to living in a nice area, close to the city.

This means not just tolerating your neighbor’s eccentricities (within reason), but them tolerating yours too.

Perhaps Emma isn’t aware of just how disruptive her and her children are.

Or perhaps she just doesn’t care.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.